Saturday, December 31, 2011

Because there are 53 Saturdays in 2011 we have 53 blocks. You might want to repeat this one for the corners. It's an original design I drew because I noticed how popular appliqued shields were during the 1860s and '70s, but found no pieced versions.

C Cut a background rectangle 4 3/4'' x 6 1/4''. Cut into two triangles from corner to corner with one cut. This is also on the template page.

D Cut a striped red fabric into a rectangle9'' x 5 7/8''. The stripes should run parallel to the short sides. Use template D to trim into a rectangle.

Repeated blocks make a patriotic miniquilt.

Alternated with the pieced star in week #41.

The shield goes right to the edge of the block so

sashing provides a little visual space around it.

Here's a mockup without sashing I made from photos of Becky's blocks.

This is the last of the blocks, but not the last of the posts. I'll keep you updated with pictures of finished quilts and news on the book and new Civil War reproduction fabric lines. Subscribe through email (see top left) and you'll get a note when there's a new post.

The shield just seems perfect the way it is but there were other drafts.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

This modified nine-patch block with a wreath in the center can remind us of the first Christmas of the War. You'll find out why Becky put parrots in it below.

Christmas Eve by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly

The Davises with daughter and grandchildren in 1885

In 1896 Varina Davis, first lady of the Confederacy, wrote a memoir about Christmas in the Confederate White House. She told of her children repairing broken toys for the neighborhood orphans in Richmond during the War's last winter.

Girl with a doll, about 1900

"While looking over the advertisements of the toys and everything else intended to make the children joyful in the columns of the city papers, I have been impressed with the contrast between the present time and the... Southern country thirty-one years ago....

"For as Christmas season was ushered in under the darkest clouds, everyone felt the cataclysm which impended, but the rosy, expectant faces of our little children were a constant reminder that self-sacrifice must be the personal offering of each member of the family. How to satisfy the children when nothing better could be done than the little makeshift attainable in the Confederacy was the problem of the older members of each household.

The Davis children early in the War.

"The ladies dispersed in anxious squads of toy-hunters, and each one turned over the store of her children's treasures for a contribution to the orphans' tree, my little ones rushed over the great house looking up their treasure: eyeless dolls, three-legged horses, tops with the upper peg broken off, rubber tops, monkeys with all the squeak gone silent and all the ruck of children's toys that gather in a nursery closet.

"Some small feathered chickens and parrots which nodded their heads in obedience to a weight beneath them were furnished with new tail feathers, lambs minus much of their wool were supplied with a cotton wool substitute, rag dolls were plumped out and recovered with clean cloth, and the young ladies painted their fat faces in bright colors and furnished them with beads for eyes."

Boy with a toy dog, about 1865

Read more of Varina Davis's story about their make-shift Christmas by clicking here:

The name Christmas Star was given to this block by the Oklahoma Farmer Stockman periodical, which had a quilt column in the late 1920s and '30s. The pattern (BlockBase #1806c) has other names and different shadings, among the names: Wedding Ring, Crown of Thorns and Memory Wreath. I modified it a bit so the grid based on 5 fit an 8" square better.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

This week's block can recall the ladies' fairs that raised funds for soldiers' aid.

"In the Parlor: At the Fair"

By Thomas Nast

150 years ago December brought preparations for the annual ladies' fairs, the ancestors of our Christmas crafts bazaars. During the Civil War these charity events benefitted soldiers North and South.

The largest of them all was the Great Metropolitan Fair, which took place in New York City in 1864.

The fair to benefit the Sanitary Commission was held at Union Square (actually named because it was at the union of Broadway and the old Bowery Road, but an appropriate location, nevertheless.)

Fairs often sold needlework and crafts made by women, but this fair also was like an industrial exposition with states and cities showing off their manufacturing. It was resembled an antique show too with paintings, furniture and curiosities for sale.

Women organized it and "manned" the booths.

Here's a photo of the booth for the city of Hartford, Connecticut.

A blow-up of those items hanging next to a soldier's uniform indicate that one is an embroidered banner and the other possibly a four-patch strip quilt. Quilts were definitely part of the fairs.

The Fairs raised a good deal of money, although French visitor Ernest DuVergier seems to have begrudged the donations he made to the Philadelphia Fair ...

"Nothing is more ingenious than the way they get money from visitors. They have discovered an infinite number of different temptations and traps. I pay to get in, I pay to get out, I pay to see a museum where well-varnished examples of run-of-the-mill native painting shine by gaslight; I will pay if I want to take part in the vote which will award a silver vase to the most popular politicians...."

Hey, Ernest, it was all for a good cause.

The block named New York was published in Hearth and Home magazine about 1910. The pattern featured a pieced star in the corner. This week's block is adapted for an 8" pattern with a star print in the field area.

Last year at Quilt Market Cindy Rennels showed off her patriotic quilt that alternates a version of the New York block with a larger star.

Cutting an 8" Finished Block

A - From a star print cut a square 4-1/2", focusing on a star if you like.

B - Cut 2 white and 1 red rectangles 1-7/8" x 4-1/2"

C - Cut 1 white and 2 red rectangles 1-7/8" x 8-1/2"

This easy block might make extras for the corners of your quilt. We're getting down to the end of the 53 blocks here and you are going to need 56. I'll give you another corner option at the end of the month.

Many of the Sanitary Commission fairs published newspapers every day they were open.

See The Canteen, the publication of the Albany fair by clicking here at Google Books: